Archives for FUBAR

The number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. has dropped for the first time in two decades — decreasing by 8 percent since 2007, a new study finds. The reasons range from the sour economy to Mexican violence and increased U.S. enforcement that has made it harder to sneak across the border. Much of the decline comes from a sharp drop-off in illegal immigrants from the Caribbean, Central America and South America attempting to cross the southern border of the U.S., according to the Pew Hispanic Center, which based its report on an analysis of 2009 census data. TheRead More

Is the tea party the new Republican Party? The grass-roots network of fed-up conservative-libertarian voters displayed its power in its biggest triumph of the election year: the toppling of Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska’s GOP primary. Political novice Joe Miller is the fifth tea party insurgent to win a GOP Senate nominating contest, an upset that few, if any, saw coming. With the stunning outcome, the fledgling tea party coalition and voters who identify with its anti-tax, anti-spending sentiments proved that democracy is alive and well — within the Republican Party. Don’t like who is representing you? Rise up, fireRead More

Despite President Barack Obama‘s declaration Tuesday of an end to the combat mission in Iraq, combat almost certainly lies ahead. And in asserting the U.S. has met its responsibilities in Iraq, the president opened the door wide to a debate about the meaning of success in the muddle that most — but not all — American troops are leaving behind. A look at some of the statements Obama made in his Oval Office speech and how they compare with the facts: ___ OBAMA: “Tonight, I am announcing that the American combat mission in Iraq has ended.” THE FACTS: Peril remainsRead More

An elections board in Ohio says a former congressman who served time in federal prison has enough valid signatures to run again for a U.S. House seat. Director Tom McCabe says the Mahoning County board on Monday approved more than 30 disputed signatures to allow Jim Traficant (TRAF’-eh-kehnt) to make the November ballot in northeast Ohio’s 17th district. Traficant represented the Youngstown area as a Democrat for nearly two decades before his 2002 conviction for corruption. He’s running as an independent. Hundreds of signatures from four counties were disqualified in July. The secretary of state ordered a review by theRead More

A $40 million prison sits in the desert north of Baghdad, empty. A $165 million children’s hospital goes unused in the south. A $100 million waste water treatment system in Fallujah has cost three times more than projected, yet sewage still runs through the streets. As the U.S. draws down in Iraq, it is leaving behind hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. More than $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds has been wasted on these projects — more than 10 percent of the $53.7 billion the US has spent on reconstruction in Iraq, according to audits from a U.S. watchdogRead More

If Democrats had doubts about the voter unrest that threatens to rob them of their majority in Congress, they needed only look from the Capitol this weekend to the opposite end of the National Mall. It’s where Ken Ratliff joined tens of thousands of other anti-government activists at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial for conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally. “There’s gotta’ be a change, man,” said Ratliff, a 55-year-old Marine veteran from Rochester, N.Y. Neither Democrats nor Republicans can afford to ignore the antiestablishment fervor displayed Saturday during Beck’s rally that took on the tone of anRead More

The American economy could experience painfully slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment for a decade or longer as a result of the 2007 collapse of the housing market and the economic turmoil that followed, according to an authority on the history of financial crises. That finding, contained in a new paper by Carmen M. Reinhart, an economist at the University of Maryland, generated considerable debate during an annual policy symposium here, organized by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which concluded on Saturday. The gathering, at a historic lodge in Grand Teton National Park, brought together about 110 centralRead More

Glenn Beck is borrowing some lines from President Barack Obama. At his rally with tens of thousands on the steps of Lincoln Memorial, Beck used the closing lines of then-candidate Obama’s campaign stump speech of 2008. “One man can change the world,” Beck told the crowd. “That man or woman is you. You make the difference.” Obama used a similar message on the campaign trail. He used to say that once voice could change a room, one room could change a city, and one city could change a state. Obama liked to say that state could change a country andRead More

Paris Hilton was arrested late Friday after a police motorcycle officer smelled marijuana smoke wafting from a black Cadillac Escalade driven by her boyfriend on the Las Vegas Strip, then found cocaine in her purse, authorities said. A crowd quickly gathered when Hilton and Las Vegas nightclub mogul Cy Waits were stopped about 11:30 p.m. Friday in the vehicle near the Wynn Las Vegas resort, police said. The 29-year-old celebrity socialite was taken into the hotel “to keep her safe” during the initial investigation, police Lt. Wayne Holman said. Police Officer Marcus Martin said the motorcycle officer pulled the EscaladeRead More

The furor over how close is too close to ground zero for a planned Islamic center and mosque has raised a simple question nine years after Sept. 11: Where exactly is ground zero? The lines marking the site of the 2001 terror attacks change depending on which New Yorker, 9/11 family member and American you talk to. Even those who know it best can’t agree on its boundaries. Tourists who come to snap pictures outside of a busy construction site often aren’t sure that they’re there. Andrew Slawsky, a 22-year-old college student standing outside the proposed mosque and Islamic center,Read More